Five health benefits of teaching your kids good personal hygiene practices

Proper personal hygiene practices are not only good for you but also for your kids. These lessons are not only essential to your children now but for their future wellbeing as well. Thus it is imperative that as parents, you educate your children on the basic hygiene practices.

Even though there are hygiene lessons in the school curriculum, it is through observing you, as a parent, that these lessons will have a lasting impact on their lives.  

The health benefits listed below need to be taught as early as possible as they are good for their physical and emotional health.

i. Lessened risk of skin infections

Some skin infections such as scabies and ringworms can be caused by poor hygiene practices. To prevent these infections, your child needs to take regular baths ensuring they have taken extra care to proper scrub their bodies. Teach them how to dry themselves well especially in hidden crevices like between the toes to prevent the occurrence of athlete’s foot.

ii. Reduce threat to life threatening illnesses

The world is currently at the center of a coronavirus outbreak. As the virus continues to spread, the World Health Organization has put out some guidelines on how to avoid getting infected. These guidelines involve personal initiative in order to protect yourself and your kids. This is more reason to teach your kids what they need to do because they are also at risk. Teaching them how to wash their hands and how to use alcohol based sanitizers is especially important during this outbreak. These steps go a long way in ensuring their safety.

iii. Fewer upset tummies

Many stomach upsets among children are caused by dirt from their hands. Since you can’t stop your children from playing, teach them the necessary precautions to ensure they have clean hands particularly at meal times. Make it a routine to wash hands when they come from playing and before they handle any food. There will be times when they will argue that their hands are clean but, teach them that their hands come into contact with different things so even though they think they aren’t dirty, they probably are.  

iv. Healthy teeth and gums

Proper oral hygiene helps to keep our teeth and gums healthy. Teach your child how to brush their teeth as soon as prescribed by your doctor. Educate them on the importance of brushing their teeth. The sooner they understand this the faster cleaning their teeth will become a habit. Brush your teeth at the same time so they can see that you too take oral hygiene seriously.

v. Better mental health

As we have seen, cleanliness helps improve your mental wellbeing. A clean environment and good personal hygiene can help your kids relax better and be happier.

Keeping clean will also help them in their interactions with other children therefore maintaining friendships.